[Stu Bykofsky, Philadelphia Daily News] I’m glad to be credited for creating the term “Mumidiots.” They hate America. And they use him as a symbol and a focus of their hate. And Mumia becomes a handy symbol for them to use against a system that they believe is (rolling his eyes) racist, and [rolling his eyes) colonial, and (rolling his eyes) homophobic and (rolling his eyes) military and (opening his mouth real wide) capitalist, and everything else that they despise. He’s articulate. He’s good-looking. I have to ask myself if he would have quite so much support if he were ugly and inarticulate.

As a youth, Huey hated to leave his house, because older boys would pick on him and call him names. In a revealing discussion with his former partner and one-time head of the BPP, Elaine Brown, the private Huey emerges as a man consumed with fear:

"A lot of what I am has to do with fear," he said to me out of nowhere one of those first nights I came to see him in Oakland. ''And what I understand about fear. I wasn't afraid only in the Soul Breaker. Like you, I've been afraid much of my life."

"You know, niggers on the street don't like 'pretty niggers,'" he continued, making me wonder whether he was speaking about him or me.

"They called me 'pretty' and 'high yellow nigger' and other motherfuckers. The problem with niggers on the street, of course, is that they don't know what to hate for their oppression."

To conquer his profound fear of the streets, Huey sought the counsel of his older brother, Walter, who schooled him with valuable insights into both street and life realities. Walter explained that the guy who seemed like the biggest bully was often the guy with the biggest fear. "He was probably more afraid than you," Walter reasoned.

The older Newton taught the younger how to walk, how to talk, and how to fight. In essence, he taught him to confront and to overcome his fear.

It worked, to a degree, but Huey would confide to Elaine, "I was still scared every day."